


Empty Sheets

by GreyHood99



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Bromance, Can I at last have Shay as my brother?, F/M, I love Shay Cormac, M/M, Poor Shay, Romance, The Author Regrets Everything, You might need tissues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2016-11-21
Packaged: 2018-09-01 08:34:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8617120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreyHood99/pseuds/GreyHood99
Summary: There is only one night that Liam O'Brien regrets.





	

I fail to sleep tonight. It’s not just the mission tomorrow that keeps me up, it’s the empty bed next to me.

I first met Shay Cormac in Dublin, he was Irish, just like me. His parents were absent from his life, he needed guidance, I served most of my life as his true guardian. Shay was always quick to run into danger, just like his fights in tavern pubs in our childhood neighborhood, eventually the cost of his recklessness caught up to him.

He was beyond furious upon returning from his mission in Libson. News had struck of a terrible earthquake killing thousands, and many more injured. According to Shay, the precursor artifact he was tasked to retrieve had caused the disaster. In other words, the assassin’s were responsible for killing thousands and destroying cities. I hadn’t paided any mind to it though, I thought I was never gonna see Shay again. I had heard reports that our enemy was also looking for the precursor sites, Shay was likely to run into trouble. I was relieved to hear to that his flag ship and it’s captain arrived without a scratch. However, Shay didn’t care about himself, he cared about the thousands whose deaths he was responsible for.

I gaze at the empty bed, it’s sheets untouched. Hope Jensen, me and Shay’s friend, comes up to me. She puts a hand on my shoulder, I feel nothing, my world’s been shattered. “I’m sorry Liam,” She says solemnly. I can’t hold myself together anymore, and neither can she, we both sob into each other’s robes. Shay, traitor or not, was still one of us in spirit. Shay joined our order for both guidance and for our quest of equality among our irish heritage in the New World, but that dream was over now. I couldn’t finish what we started, not without him. I remember pulling him out from bar fights, his breath rancid with whiskey and beer. I remember him returning the favor in saving my life more than once from our templar enemies. Our memories were just that now, and only I was left to keep them alive. I may have not have been Shay’s father, but I felt as if I had lost my only child. 

My sweet naive Shay, so quick to rush into the danger. So eager to do what’s right, no matter the cost to yourself. I still remember us beating up those redcoat British lobsters and gang members as they threatened our people in Dublin and in New York, you were and will always be my brother.

Hope left my chambers at last, her face was still damp from he tears. She may have not admitted it to him, but she loved Shay. She loved him far more than any teacher should love their student. I saw her walk into her room, she closed the door. I went back to bed, but I heard the familiar music of the music box that Shay had stolen for her a year ago. He was to poor to buy it, but he was determined to get her something she had always wanted. I got up to hug her, she needed it more than I did apparently. The door was locked, “Hope?” I asked concerned. “Don’t come in, I need some time alone,” Hope wept. I returned to my room defeated. I laid on my bed, all I could do was rest. 

I had a lot on my mind. Was Shay right about Achilles knowing that the precursor site would have killed civilians? To kill innocents was to go against our own creed, that’s all that mattered to me, besides Shay. However, as the years went by, I kept putting principles before friend, I wonder if that’s where I went wrong. Instead of defending the accusations of my friend for the actions of my mentor, I shut him out. I didn’t even hear him out, just dumped him into the cold winter night and snow, and told him to “cool off”. 

I didn’t hear the words or warnings of my friends, I didn’t save him when Chevalier shot him in the back. It was a coward’s act. I never liked Chevalier, he always disrespected and messed with Shay. Shay had at first looked up to the great captain, Shay’s father had lived and died as a captain on the sea when he was young Shay himself saw his father swept up into the sea during a sea storm. But after being Chevalier’s whipping boy, he had had enough. I constantly had to break up fights between the two. Chevalier had wanted to get even with the boy, he was starting to beat him at so much now. Shay was becoming the better fighter; the better sailor and captain; and the more wiser. Chevalier de la Verendrye couldn’t have anyone younger than him be better than him. So of course, the French-Canadian captain shot him dead in the back, like a coward. The great captain knew he couldn’t beat Shay one on one, Shay stumbled forward, he fell into the black abyss, the frigid water gulping him up like a late night meal. 

I see it play in my head over and over, me and my Assassin brothers and sisters chasing Shay through the forest. “Assassins! Stop him,” Achilles cries out like a mad bull, “Stop Shay!” Shay’s hands tighten on the manuscript he stole, he’s made his choice. We corner him at the cliff, he removes his hood. “Give back the manuscript Shay,” Hope demands, She’s more concerned about trying to save him from Achilles’s wrath than to worry about a book. “I’m sure Achilles can-” “I can not!” Shay roars righteously. The light from Hope’s eyes seem to drain. Shay continues explaining himself, “All those souls lost thanks to this dammed manuscript!” My grip on my pistol lessens, I can’t kill my brother. “One more hardly matters,” Shay says contempt with his decision. Shay walks towards the cliff, he’s going to jump. He’s determined to follow his believes till the end, and I still don’t know if he was right about the mentor. I should have listened, he was my friend. He turns his back to us, he’s standing at the edge of the cliff. The water opens up, seemingly ready to devour Shay with one gulp. 

Shay’s preparing to jump, I drop my pistol on the snow, ready to pull him back to safety. But I’m not fast enough, with a loud crack from Chevalier’s flintlock, Shay is sent tumbling into the ocean’s drink. Shay grunts in pain as he is sent to the bottom dept of hell, it’s the one trip I know he won’t be coming back from. I watch as Shay lands hard on his back on a giant iceberg, and then slid into the water. The iceberg breaks off, sending his frail body away from me, preventing me from racing down to retrieve his body. I’m on my knees weeping in the cold snow blizzard. Achilles leaves devastated, he’s lost both his rebellious student and his precious manuscript. Although it’s clear he values power over attachment. The death of his son and wife has made him void of any attachments. The only thing the mentor lives and breathes for is his determination to gain the power for the assassins to gain a foothold of Colonial America, he’ll do anything to get that power. He made a promis to his won dead mentor years ago. Chevalier sneers under his hood, satisfied with his treachery. My desire to wipe that smile off his face are halted by Hope begging me not to fight him. She already lost Shay, she can’t lose anyone else in her life. Hope grew up an orphan, and lost her adoptive parents, she can’t lose anyone else. She had pledged to not make any attachment to anyone, till she met Shay Patrick Cormac, who showed her a world of wonderment and excitement filled with adventure. I watch Chevalier walk off, to sleep peacefully in the cabin of his ship. Hope helps me up from the snow, and we both walk back to our rooms in Davenport manor, there’s nothing we can do now but rest up. It would be treason to mourn the death of a traitor, so we mourn with our thoughts, to ourselves.

I reflect one last time, I know the extra bed in my room is going to stay empty for the rest of my life. Unless his ghost claims it for the time being. I turn in my bed, I can’t look at the empty mattress. Somehow, by a miracle, I fall asleep, to music playing from Hope’s room.


End file.
